Church Records for Genealogists
English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Williamsport, dedicated January 1856
St. Mark's Lutheran Church, dedicated October, 1896.
St. Mark's Lutheran Church and Parish House today, 2006.
Other links of interest:
Led by Rev. Henry Ziegler, 27 members of the German Lutheran Church formed the English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Williamsport, Pennsylvania on March 7, 1852.�In 1892, the Church was renamed St. Mark's English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Williamsport, Pa., and later, in 1918, the current name of St. Mark's Lutheran Church of Williamsport, Pa. was adopted.
St. Mark's has mothered several Williamsport area Lutheran churches. Thus it is quite possible that genealogical research may start with St. Mark's and end with another Lutheran church, formed from St. Mark's members. In 1867, St. Mark's members residing in South Williamsport formed Messiah�s Lutheran Church in that community. St. Paul�s was the second English speaking Lutheran Church in Williamsport. Doctrinal disputes caused some members of St. Mark's to form St. Paul's in 1871.
St. Mark's membership grew rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the population of the city. In the 1940's St. Mark's counted more than 1600 members.
The pastors who served St. Mark's kept fairly meticulous records of the baptisms and births, confirmations, marriages and burials at which they presided. Those records are, for the most part, intact, notwithstanding the several floods of the Susquehanna River that affected the church facilities prior to construction of the levee after World War II.
St. Mark's began to scan the pastoral records in 2006. Records will continue to be added as scanning progresses. The records are indexed by date and pastor, not by individual name. The records are in JPEG format. The records are mostly hand written, but the scans are of high quality, so the records may be copied, enlarged and examined closely.�
Click on the tabs at the top of this page to examine the records.
What's new:
April 22, 2011 - Baptisms of Pastors Yount, Kunkle & Rick 2/1887-9/1995.; Marriages Pastors Yount, Kunkle & Rick 1/1887-2/1998
April 10, 2011 - Church new member lists from 1886-1918, 1942 & 1943 have been posted. These include confirmations occurring in those years, transfers and new members.
